


Bad Trip: Yours to Keep

by laridian



Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Horror, No Gore, Self-Sacrifice, but very mild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28261794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laridian/pseuds/laridian
Summary: The crew of the Unreliable is sent to recover data from an abandoned space station, with the usual proviso that "anything else you find, it's yours to keep". But something else finds them...(Note: If this were to take place during Bad Trip, it would be sometime after Chapter 15.)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saltuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltuna/gifts).



“Air looks good,” Ellie said, “and the power is still working, so I don’t have to watch any of you flail in zero-gee.” She put away the atmospheric-contaminant detector.

“Did they say why this station was abandoned?” Parvati asked.

“I didn’t ask,” Rowan said. “But it’s far enough at the edge of Halcyon that it could’ve been cost-cutting.”

“Or maybe there’s monsters loose in it. Giant man-eating sprats,” Felix offered.

Ellie rolled her eyes.

“I told you those serials were no good for you,” Max said, checking his shotgun. 

“You’re still bringing that,” Felix pointed out. “Is that safe to use?”

“If we get into the interior and it turns out there’s some nasties, it’ll be fine,” Ellie said. She had her pistols. “You three, though, you might wanna stick to tossball. Especially you, Cap.”

Rowan shrugged; he knew he was a poor shot. “Now, if we find anything else we might be able to sell or use, let’s take it with us. Otherwise, we’re looking for the main data hub. I’m supposed to download anything labeled MHC into this.” He held up the breadloaf-sized orange box he’d been given by their employers, before handing it to Parvati, who put it in the rucksack he wore.

“Sounds like a straight shot.” Max sighed. “I hope it’s that easy.”

“Be careful, Captain,” ADA said, as they grouped in front of the airlock door and made final equipment checks. “Do not come to any harm while you’re out there.”

“Thanks, ADA.”

“Not like at HRS-1084.”

“I’ll watch out for any mines.”

“Or at — “

“I’ll be careful,” Rowan said, turning a little red as everyone tried to hide their amusement.

“We’ll be back as soon as we can, ADA.”

They went through the airlock and into the space station HRS-593. “I never thought I’d see an overprotective automechanical,” Parvati said, smiling.

“Yeah, she’s acting like one of those moms in the domestic serials,” Felix joined in.

“Can it,” Rowan said. “She’s just sensitive because she’s already lost one Captain. I don’t blame her for that. Okay. Let’s find our way…”

After they’d gotten through the intake area, and down the first set of halls, they stopped at an intersection to get their bearings.

“Did you hear that?” Felix whispered.

“Stop it, Felix.” Ellie sounded more exasperated than angry.

“No, I mean it. I heard something.”

There was a very loud _CLANG_ in the distance, and they all jumped.

“Okay, I know you heard that,” Felix continued to whisper.

“Probably just something falling down,” Max said. “Nothing to be afraid of.” He looked at Rowan, who nodded. Stuff falling down wasn’t scary. Stuff could fall down for no real reason. He’d seen that plenty of times.

“Probably just some can that was right on the edge of a shelf,” Rowan said, “and there’s enough vibrations in the hull to wobble it off eventually. That’s all.”

Felix didn’t look convinced, but he took a better grip on his tossball stick and flicked the setting. The stick crackled to electric life.

“Let’s try this way,” Rowan said. “Remember, we can keep anything else we find.”

In the next room they found the bodies. They were rotting, no longer fresh, but there was still hair attached to the skin, and some bones were visible.

“What happened here?” Now Parvati was whispering.

“Was it a fight?” Rowan asked. “A mutiny, maybe?”

“Nobody’s armed,” Max observed. He moved closer to examine the nearest group. “No weapons.”

“How did they die?” Rowan asked, and wished he hadn’t.

“I don’t like this,” Ellie said. “What if this was from some disease?”

“I wanna know why so many places we visit are like this,” Felix said. He nudged one body with his tossball stick. “It’s like, all of Halcyon is one big horror serial, and we’re the people in the town who don’t know what’s going on just outside the walls.”

“There’s some truth to that,” Max said. He held his shotgun ready.

There were footsteps in the outer corridor. Rowan was closest to the door and looked out; he saw nothing, and the noise had stopped. It was just this place getting to him, he told himself. That and Felix’s talk. 

“I don’t like this,” Ellie said. “Let’s find the data hub and get out of here. And Felix, shut up about your horror serials.”

“This is like that one set on the _Hope_ ,” Parvati said, in a very quiet voice. They all turned to look at her.

“Not you too, Miss Holcomb,” Max said.

“Sorry.”

“I didn’t think Halcyon would allow horror serials,” Rowan said, as he led the way back to the intersection and chose another route. “Seems like they wouldn’t want people scared.”

Max snorted.

“Keeping people scared and off-balance is probably exactly what the Board wants,” Ellie said. Was she speaking a little louder than usual? “And at the end of the show, the troopers come in, whether they’re Purpleberry Police or UDL or — “

Rowan laughed; he couldn’t help it. “Purpleberry Police? That sounds like a kid’s show.” He changed his voice to a goofy pitch. “Hyuk, hiya kids! It’s time for the Purpleberry Police to teach you about good civic virtues!”

“They’re real,” Felix said. “One year, Purpleberry Crunch included trading cards about them.” He might have said more, except for a tapping noise, like typing. They all froze. The noise stopped abruptly.

 _W_ _e’re not alone_ , Rowan thought, and now he was nervous. An empty space station was one thing. A space station that was occupied by anything was far worse. For one thing, what was it living on out here? He wished he knew how long ago this station was abandoned. He held tighter to his tossball stick.

Everyone else felt the same way, it looked like; on the alert and weapons at the ready. They looked to him; he was the Captain, after all. He had to lead, and they needed the money. 

If they moved fast, they could get this and get out. So move fast, he told himself. He had to hold it together for them. Get the data, get out.

The next hallway, the ship groaned around them. Rowan put a hand to the wall to steady himself. He didn’t like this, not any of it, and he hoped this place wasn’t going to fall apart around them. Was it still structurally sound? How fast could they get back to the airlock? Would it be fast enough?

He tried to calm the hammering of his heart, but now he had to consider that this place really was decrepit, that maybe something environmental had killed the inhabitants — was that the right word?

“Hey,” Parvati said. She’d leaned to look through a door. “I think this is it.”

Oh, thank God or the Law or whoever it was. A whole lot of computers and some terminals.

“Great,” Rowan said. Get the data, get out. He shrugged off the rucksack and took out the orange box. It had a retractable cable; all he had to do was get to the right place to download. “Max?”

“I’m on it.” Max set down his shotgun and began typing at the terminal.

“There’s another body,” Parvati said nervously.

Rowan left Max to his work and went to look. It was, indeed, another body. This one, though, was missing most of its face and skull, which the pistol in its hand might be related to.

“FWA?” Parvati said, looking to Rowan.

“It… looks like it to me,” he said, in a low voice.

“Wonder why,” Felix said at Rowan’s side, making the latter jump. “Something real bad must’ve happened here. Maybe that data tells of the last days of the crew. Maybe — “

“Shut up, Felix!” Ellie snapped. “You’re not helping!”

The lights went out. Parvati screamed, briefly. Max swore.

“We’re getting out of here,” Rowan said. This place was bad, even if it wasn’t haunted. Maybe it was falling apart. Maybe the life support was poisoning them right now. He fumbled with the torch and shone it around the room. Max, picking up his shotgun. Ellie, looking the most serious he’d ever seen her. Felix next to him. Parvati –-

Where was Parvati?

Fear raced up Rowan’s spine. “Parvati!” he called, swinging the light around the room. She wasn’t here. “Parvati!” She wouldn’t have left them. 

“Where is she?” Felix asked, looking around.

Now they couldn’t leave, not without Parvati. “Look around the room, see if you can find anything,” Rowan said, handing the torch to Max. He put the orange box back in his rucksack, and the rucksack on his back. 

“She isn’t here, Captain.”

“I know!” Rowan forced himself to take a deep breath and try to calm his voice. “Okay. She can’t have gone far. Or — been taken far.”

“Whatever took her’s gonna regret it,” Felix said. He sounded braver now. “Parvati!” he yelled.

They heard footsteps in the hall.

They raced to look, got jammed in the doorway, but saw nobody in the hall. The footsteps sounded farther down, and echoey.

“Give her back!” Felix yelled, and ran down the hall toward the footsteps.

Max and Ellie both cursed. “Don’t run off, you hullhead!” Ellie yelled. “Voiddammit!” She ran after him.

Shit, no, _no_ , this was how everyone got picked off, even Rowan who had avoided most horror movies knew that. “Ellie, wait!” he called, but she’d disappeared into the darkness too.

“Max,” Rowan croaked. Max was still here. “Max, we have to stick together. If we get separated then — then — we’ll all die.”

“Nonsense, Captain.”

Rowan looked sharply at him.

“I apologize.” Max hefted the shotgun. “We will not die. None of us will. We will find the others and get out of here. We need to get the lights back on. Obviously the power is still functioning, or we’d be in zero gee. We won’t help them at all by blundering about in the dark.”

Max was right. Okay. The ship wasn’t going to spontaneously break up on them. Probably. Rowan still tried to calm his breathing, without much success. “How do we do that? Get the power back on?”

They returned to the data hub. Max checked the terminals until he found one that was still operational. “It’s for emergencies,” he told Rowan, as he began typing again. “Just give me a minute.”

“Sure.” Rowan kept the torch moving around the room. The shadows felt darker, more solid here. That’s nonsense. Shadows are shadows. You’re just spooked. Just because Parvati vanished. And Felix and Ellie are missing. And… those are all extremely good reasons to be spooked. 

And his crew were equally good reasons for him to not fall apart, at least not until they were all safely back on the _Unreliable_. He had to get them back. Had to. He was their Captain, they were his friends. 

“There!” Max said, just a little smugly.

The lights returned. Rowan squeezed his eyes shut against the sharp light. “Good going, Max. At least now we can see our way around.”

“And our compatriots should be able to see better where they are, too,” Max said. He stood.

“I think we’d best find them and leave this place.”

“Yes. This is — “

A high-pitched, inhuman shriek sounded at a distance.

“Something’s here,” Rowan said in a strangled voice. 

“If we’re lucky, young Millstone has just drop-kicked something where it really hurts,” Max said. “Let’s go.”

~ ~ ~

Rowan called his friends’ names as he and Max went through the ship. The screech didn’t repeat, and the lights stayed on, but they didn’t see any sign of the others. He shut off the torch to save its power.

“I really, really don’t like this,” Rowan said. He was jumping at anything by now, real or imagined. 

“I don’t either. We should have come across them by now.” Max had taken the lead, checking every doorway and room. “We’ve covered almost the whole ship. I’d almost say we’re going in circles, except — “

The lights went out again.

Rowan drew in his breath sharply, and reached forward for Max. “Max!” His hand grasped nothing but empty air. “Max!” he yelled, shrilly, as full-blown panic threatened to overtake him. “Max! Answer me!”

He was alone.

Rowan flicked on the torch again. How — how could Max have disappeared so fast? He’d been right there, less than two meters away! How —

He was next, wasn’t he. That’s how it was, in horror stories, everyone got picked off one by one, and killed, usually gruesomely. He was going to die. They had probably already died, and he’d find their bodies, and —

 _No. Stop it._ Rowan reached with a shaky hand for his inhaler. If ever he needed that half dose, or the full dose, it was now. But he had a bad grip on it, and dropped it, and he heard it skitter away across the floor.

No, _no!_ He dropped to hands and knees and searched. He had to get that back, had to. Without it he’d completely lose his mind, he wouldn’t be able to do anything.

Rowan found the inhaler next to a cabinet. It had stopped against a datapad that came dimly to life when he tapped it. Rowan read the words.

 _S_ _omething has taken the ship,_ he read. _We don’t know what it wants. Cygna thinks it feeds on fear. Which is preposterous. But there’s no doubt something is stalking us. We’ve sent a distress call, but I think we’re on our own._

_V_ _alen has just called everyone together. He says he has a plan to fight it. I hope it works._

Feeds… on fear? How would that even work? Fear was an emotion, it wasn’t even an energy like sunlight, like what plants ate. 

Rowan jerked his head up as he heard the screech again, in the distance. It had taken everyone else. He was the only one left. 

He began to laugh, a hollow sound with no humor in it. “Do you feed on fear?” he said to the darkness that threatened to overwhelm his torch. “Is that it? Are you hungry? I’ve got plenty for you. Just let them go.”

It felt like the darkness was almost tangible, pressing in on him, or maybe that was the fear itself.

“Let them go,” Rowan begged. “Send them back to the airlock. I’ll stay. You can keep me. Please. Let them go.”

He drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, and lowered his head. Something whispered nearby. 

He didn’t want to die. But better him than them. _Please let this work. Please._ “Let them escape,” he said, without lifting his head. “You can do what you want with me. Okay? I promise. Let them go.”

~ ~ ~

“Oh, Law,” Parvati said, and she looked nearly gray in the half-light of the airlock emergency lights.

“How’d we end up here?” Felix asked. He looked around, bewildered. “We were nowhere near — “

“Where’s Cap?” Ellie asked. “Vicar? You were with him last.”

“I don’t know,” Max said tightly. “We have to find him.” He strode to the closed intake door and nearly walked into it; it refused to open. He tried the terminal, and stepped back in surprise.

“What is it?” Ellie asked.

The terminal screen read, in large letters made from other letters: GO. 

“What the fuck?”

“I think you speak for all of us, Felix,” Ellie said. 

GO

NOW

OR 

DIE

“Not without the Captain!” Parvati insisted. 

DIE * DIE * DIE * DIE * DIE repeated in flashing letters. There was a sudden hiss of vents opening, and a sickly-sweet smell drifted down from them.

“Get out!” Ellie shouted. She grabbed Max by the arm just as he fired his shotgun at the intake door. The blast scarred the door but didn’t break through. “Get out, now!”

Ellie pushed or dragged them all through the airlock back to the _Unreliable_. When the hatch closed behind her, she leaned against it and put her hand to her face. “…Shit.”

“What was that stuff?” Felix asked. He’d hit the floor on the way in, and now stood.

“Gas. Yeah, I know, ‘duh’. But sweet-smelling gas is never good. Maybe that's what got the crew in that one room.”

“Where is the Captain?” ADA asked. They all jumped.

“He, uh, “ Parvati began and looked pleadingly at Ellie and Max in turn. 

“He’s trapped in the space station,” Felix said. 

“What.”

“The Captain is still on the space station,” Max repeated. “There’s something else alive in there, or perhaps the ship’s computer has gone rogue. In either case, we have to rescue him.”

“You abandoned my Captain?” ADA wasn’t supposed to sound coldly angry, but she did.

“No,” Ellie said quickly. “Like Max says, we have to regroup. We got chased out. I just…” She waved her hands. “Fuck, I have no idea how. I don’t even know how it grabbed me.”

“Vicar DeSoto,” ADA said. “You have bragged that you have skill at computers and hacking. Is this true? Answer truthfully.”

“I do,” Max said. 

“You will connect me to the station’s computer,” ADA said. “I will determine what is happening, and where my Captain is.”

“You can do that?” Felix was taken aback.

“If Vicar DeSoto will connect me. You four will bring him back. No other outcome is acceptable.”

~ ~ ~

She had already lost one Captain. She would not be known as a ship that could not keep her Captain alive. She might be the only self-aware digital astrogator in existence, but if there was even one more, she would not have them think she was careless.

ADA did not know, in truth, if she could connect with the station. She was not aware of any instances of it happening. But that did not mean it couldn’t happen.

The engineer found a suitable cable; the laborer volunteered to take it into the airlock; the doctor found a helmet that should protect him from any toxic gases. And when it was all set up, the vicar used the same helmet to force a way for ADA to connect.

It was… different. ADA had no frame of reference to compare it to. The station computer was unintelligent, simply reacting to commands, and there had been none for some time.

ADA gave it commands.

She read the records in microseconds, of what the crew thought was happening, but this computer did not record what had actually happened. It was not all-seeing, like her. 

ADA took longer than she liked, several seconds, to figure out the environmental controls and how to locate her Captain. He was alive, as best she could tell. That was good. Now she had only to —

Ah! Something else was alive in there too, and near her Captain. ADA checked the area, the conduits and power controls, and opened a door down the hall, closed it, opened it again, to attract the other living thing, to lure it away from her Captain.

Then, when it was sufficiently far away, she overloaded all the power in that area and fried it to a powder. She wondered if it screamed; this station didn’t have the ability for her to pick up any sounds.

~ ~ ~

“Boss?”

“He’s not moving, Dr. Fenhill.”

“But he’s alive. We have to get him back to the ship. Felix?”

“I’ve got him.”

“I wonder what happened to him, that he didn’t end up at the airlock like us.”

“Ask him when he wakes up, Parvati.”

“You two, keep an eye out on the way forward, Felix in the middle, I’ll cover the rear, just in case there’s anything else.”

~ ~ ~

They returned, and the vicar severed ADA’s connection with the ship. She didn’t mind; it had become… uncomfortable. That was a human word, and the best one for the situation, ADA decided. She felt less uncomfortable after she was no longer connected. It was not a sensation she wanted to experience again, she decided.

The doctor was now examining her Captain, and ADA had no doubt he would wake soon. After he had recovered, she would let him know that she’d extracted the necessary data as well. He would get paid for risking his life. 

ADA’s frown face displayed on her console in the cockpit. He should receive better compensation for risking his life like that. (And, she supposed, the crew had risked their lives too.) Unfortunately, she couldn’t see how she could bring that about; he would have to ask for that himself, from his employers. 

Everyone seemed shaken by what had happened on HRS-953. But humans were resilient. In time, they would adjust, and tell stories about it later. She might found out, then, what had happened on the station. 

For now, she watched over her Captain. He was made of stern stuff; she saw that, if no one else did. He would survive. She would make sure of it.


	2. Artwork: Rowan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Artwork originally posted [on Tumblr](https://the-laridian.tumblr.com/post/636692489139535872/in-which-i-attempt-art) and [on Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/1912211).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got the pose from [here](https://posereference.tumblr.com/post/151471176828/new-i-think-i-need-help-staying-motivated), and I freely admit I traced the body shape, because I am trying to relearn art and I need practice.
> 
> Then I worked Rowan's Outer Worlds outfit into the pose. Also I chose a pose that obscures the face for a reason, and that reason is, I know already I need a lot more practice at faces. (There was a pose I did earlier and ended up with a sort of anime face on realistic-ish body and uh it's okay I guess, but)
> 
> After I wrote Yours to Keep, I realized that this art would pair well with this fic.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written as the prize to Saltuna for being the 500th kudos on my AO3 stories. I had a lot of fun writing it (banging it out that same night!) and I hope you enjoy it as well. Thank you and all my other readers for continuing to leave feedback and kudos, and for wanting to read more about Rowan. :)


End file.
